


Overlay

by charcoalscenes



Series: Backdated Publications [6]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Alternate Universe - Alien Invasion, Alternate Universe - Aliens, Guns, Human Experimentation, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-12
Updated: 2012-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:14:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29638656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charcoalscenes/pseuds/charcoalscenes
Summary: The assistant of Heartland’s representative, Kaito, attempts to convince his friend that befriending an alien from a hostile planet might not be wise.(Posted to AO3 on February 2021 with a Backdated Publication date from when it posted to Tumblr.)
Relationships: Astral/Tsukumo Yuuma, Tenjou Kaito & Tsukumo Yuuma
Series: Backdated Publications [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2170983
Kudos: 4





	1. Kaito

**Author's Note:**

> Actual publication into AO3 is on February 2021. This is an old piece I shared on Tumblr and wanted to post using this site's Backdate feature. More older fics will likely be added onto the Backdated Publications series, so for anyone interested in this piece or in checking out the others, enjoy!

The red armor made his form look like the long flags Kaito had seen dancers twirl in fast, gorgeous shapes. The fused being darted from one point to the next, dodging each of the cannons Kaito’s weapon sent his way. The gun emptied, and Kaito disregarded it as he flew after the boy who was partly Yuma and partly something out of this world.

“I’m telling you,” he had scolded Yuma only days before, though now it felt like months or years, “that guy is dangerous. He doesn’t have a heart or a conscience; you can’t just meet something like that and be bff’s over card games and crackers.”

“ _ Astral _ ,” Yuma had snapped, emphasizing, once more, that the “thing” Kaito was condemning had a functional name, “does too have a heart! Why don’t you get to know him before you judge him? Maybe you’ve been watching too many sci-fi movies, but just because he’s from somewhere else doesn’t mean he’s out to get our planet.”

Kaito followed Yuma through the spacious stairway that connected the lakeside walkway to the park. Yuma’s schoolbag bumped against his side as he hurried to distance himself from Kaito, and he wished he’d asked Kotori or Tetsuo to walk home with him that day; he couldn’t stand Kaito’s borderline-degrading comments about his newest friend.

“I’ve seen what his kind is capable of doing,” Kaito continued under Yuma’s sullen glare. “He looks cute and harmless now, but he isn’t scrawny. They’re too strong, Yuma. And they don’t have the best impression of humanity. Or didn’t you pay any attention to the news, what their leader said about our planet and how it would be best if humans never existed?”

“So the  _ leader _ says,” Yuma grated. He came to a stop, meeting Kaito’s angry stare. "Just because his leader says something, that doesn’t mean he agrees. He’s fine with humanity, alright? He likes me and our friends, he watches T.V., and reads Kotori’s stupid ESPer fanfics! How peaceful do you want him to be? He even recycles!“

The defense sounded disgustingly trivial, and Kaito, fed up, tried, "You have an  _ alien _ , Yuma,” he reiterated more firmly, “living under your roof, eating your food, watching you whenever you can’t pry yourself away from him, and he comes from a planet that hates humanity and is known to have sent at least six spies in the last two years while being suspected of having initiated the most abductions from here than any other terrestrial space combined - and you are just  _ okay _ with that?”

The latest case of abduction, Kaito had learned well after he and Yuma had blown up at each other’s faces that day, concluded in a twisted experiment performed by one of the more radical speakers from the alien world. The infamous Black Mist, according to rumors, had paid and coerced the man he’d worked on to cooperate, though regardless of whether or not this began as consensual, the end result was that the human would seem to be spending the rest of his life in a hospital, raving that the essence of Mist was still inside him, even as the alien himself was once more languid in his own temporary home on Earth, pain-free.

“Overlay,” Black Mist had vaguely explained the phenomenon- before a meeting Kaito had attended with Mister Heartland. They had, of course, ran into Yuma, who was practically an alien-magnet, in the theme park after Mister Heartland suggested that Kaito introduce the foreign representative to innocent human pleasantries before more of the board members arrived the following day. Astral, the quiet thing that had taken to following Yuma since the two met, turned slightly, as though he had sensed Mist’s gaze raking over Yuma’s back. The boy was focusing on his game of whack-a-Bolt as Mist drawled, “A form of fusion. Two members of my species could enact this ritual during times of great mutual emotion - sublime jubilation or despair. It binds the two partners in much the same way that years of genuine friendship and camaraderie is known to bind you humans.

"It isn’t the same between two different species. That is what I suspected, of course. Though all I know of this so far is based on a single experiment, on one subject - who was, admittedly, quite weak and…disappointingly shallow.” Kaito sideglanced at Black Mist as the foreigner stirred his glass of juice, his eyes locking briefly with the growing unease in Astral’s before settling once more on an oblivious Yuma. And then Black Mist looked away, smiling.

“Backstabbing, selfish bastard,” Kaito growled as he now flew over the vacant landscape of a foreign world, closer to the red-and-white clad being trying to escape him. "You weren’t trying to protect Yuma from Mist. You wanted to Overlay him yourself.“

Not-Yuma turned from his run to glare defiantly at Kaito before making a sharp turn, gaining distance. Grunting in fury, Kaito’s metallic wings dipped in flight, plunging after him.

_ I’ll save you, Yuma. I won’t let him take you to his world like this. I’ll stop him, I promise. _


	2. Astral

Last night was my choice. The movie that Yuma fell asleep to was one with an alien invasion on Earth, an old film about one planet dying and its inhabitants needing a new one. I went to Yuma after the movie ended and covered him in a blanket. It was something humans did to show affection, or so the actors in his television implied. I continued this practice most nights, even after he’d asserted that he preferred not to wear sheets in his sleep. Once more, I observed him as he kicked off the blanket, somehow not falling off his hammock, and I picked the cloth up and draped it over him again.

He is a precious thing. I’m not yet sure what a conscience is, what about it makes Yuma and others of his species so obsessed with something both intangible and vague. Researching the word in Yuma’s touchscreen and asking the professors and intellectuals I’ve encountered why such a trait is so vital, I’ve read and overheard discussions on psyches and values and law and morals. The topics meant little to me. But, to Yuma, those things were not why I had a heart. According to the thoughts that sometimes breezed from him, felt as though he is the source of an earthly wind, my heart – a conscience, a soul – is often seen in my smile, through my actions. 

I see myself in his thoughts and sometimes in his dreams, when the voice of his mind is especially loud, or when everything else around us is just especially silent. I never realized that I smiled. I don’t even remember the last time I did, before I met Yuma. And I don’t know when I started. But, Yuma supposes, no one can smile the way I do and not have a heart. I’ll see through him soft eyes and the softening shoulders, eased cheeks and a lazy smile; to Yuma, this is my heart - when I smile at him, when I see him. 

Perhaps he is right. It doesn’t quite matter to me either way, as every human’s and every culture’s ideal of what it means to have a heart - in a non literal sense - is different, though just as indefinite and borderline delusional. I’m not offended when Kaito, Cathy, or Shark imply - carefully, as Yuma seems eager to take offense for me and has quite a short temper - that I am a heartless being without conscience, like those of my kind before me. I don’t think I really need things like morals, anyway.

Yuma kicked the covers off, and they once more fell uselessly. I sat on them, continuing to watch the consistent rise-and-fall of his chest. Even in his sleep, he makes more noise than necessary, and spreads his limbs so that he takes more space than I’d have thought the hammock could provide. Even in his most vulnerable state, it’s easy to forget how small he is - young, frail, and human. He acts like spitfire, but in reality, his frame holds not much more mass than mine. An arm dangles from the edge of his hammock, and I reach out, idly rubbing a bony wrist.

Seconds or minutes creep past, and Yuma’s hand, in the midst of his snores, curls and hugs onto mine. If having a heart meant that it could inspire feelings that create a smile - when Yuma leans on my side, or watching him play with Toragon - then perhaps I do have one. A conscience.

_ If this is what a heart feels like, I’d hardly mind having one. _


End file.
